COMPARE UIUC MFE vs U of CHICAGO MSFM

[ddave]

Hi everyone ,

I have to decide between these two to apply for mfe . From what research I have done so far I have following pros and cons :
UIUC:
pros:
1)Great reputation of engg school + good b school (therefore good chances of career services )
2)Not too far away from chicago so job hunting wont be that dificult .
Cons:
1)New program
2)According to what i have read it has less practicality in it
3)Unknown career services ...I have heard many intern/full time are directed towards CS side .

Uof Chicago:
pros:
1)Math dept is very famous .
2)Chicago is great place to find jobs .
cons :
1)according to whatt i have read , some classes are not well taught by proffs + larger no of students .
2)New curriculum starting next year ..so no idea how its gonna pan out + more fees than usual .

Since I belong to a Computer Science Bachelor background .. I wont be too shy to start off with an introductory course on finance ... but will definitely not want an introductory course on programming ..

I hope any of you will provide me some more great inputs to these or correct on some of these if I may be wrong , to help me make a good decision. PS:CURRENT STUDENTS OF THESE PROGRAMS , YOUR INPUT IS HIGHLY APPRICIATED .

Thanks in advance .

 

[bigbadwolf]

Uof Chicago:
pros:
1)Math dept is very famous .

Meaningless criterion. Quant math isn't research math. Carnegie-Mellon isn't on the radar screen with regard to its math department but has one of the strongest MFE programs around. Same for Baruch. Conversely, universities with strong math departments can (and frequently do) have shitty MFE programs

 

[ddave]

Thanks @bigbadwolf for your view ... point taken ..

 

[systemtrader]

Meaningless criterion. Quant math isn't research math. Carnegie-Mellon isn't on the radar screen with regard to its math department but has one of the strongest MFE programs around. Same for Baruch. Conversely, universities with strong math departments can (and frequently do) have shitty MFE programs

Umm... not really..... UCLA, UCB, NYU, MIT, Rutgers, Johns Hopkins, + Uni. Chicago, all have "famous"' math departments and hence their highly ranked MFE/Mathematical Finance programs. I would say there is some correlation. Definitely not "meaningless."

 

[bigbadwolf]

Umm... not really..... UCLA, UCB, NYU, MIT, Rutgers, Johns Hopkins, + Uni. Chicago, all have "famous"' math departments and hence their highly ranked MFE/Mathematical Finance programs. I would say there is some correlation. Definitely not "meaningless."

I don't understand the "hence" part. There are different kinds of thinking involved in math and quant finance -- unless it's very applied math like numerical analysis and optimisation. The math is the precise definition-lemma-theorem-corollary style; the quant finance is heuristic and focused more on computability and coding. For sure you don't want a prof in pure math teaching a quant finance course (in fact may not want a prof in pure math teaching even pure math but that's another issue).

 

[IntoDarkness]

just curious, wat should a pure math prof do besides researching?

 

[bigbadwolf]

just curious, wat should a pure math prof do besides researching?

That's how they get tenure. But they get corralled into teaching, which is often something they're no good at. And leaving aside a handful of places (Berkeley, Princeton, Chicago, and maybe three or four others), the math department's raison d'etre is teaching "calculus to morons." In this context, setting up quick MFE programs to earn a bit of dosh has been in vogue for the last decade or so. Doesn't mean the department will be any good at it.

 

[GoIllini]

Meaningless criterion. Quant math isn't research math. Carnegie-Mellon isn't on the radar screen with regard to its math department but has one of the strongest MFE programs around. Same for Baruch. Conversely, universities with strong math departments can (and frequently do) have shitty MFE programs

True, although I would argue that in 20 years, we probably won't be quants and something that sounds mathy from UChicago has a whole lot more marketing power than something that sounds engineerey from UIUC. (I say that as a UIUC Engineering alumn.)

OP: Get an MS in Computer Engineering from UIUC, or an MBA from Booth, or maaaybe a Math/Stats MS from Chicago if they offer it. The MBA from Booth will give you options everywhere (except for working as a quant, specifically, in trading); the Comp E or Math/Stats degree will get you into a Chicago prop shop, likely at a lower expense and perhaps with the opportunity for an RAship or TAship.

 

[ShotokanAJKA]

OP: Get an MS in Computer Engineering from UIUC, or an MBA from Booth, or maaaybe a Math/Stats MS from Chicago if they offer it. The MBA from Booth will give you options everywhere (except for working as a quant, specifically, in trading); the Comp E or Math/Stats degree will get you into a Chicago prop shop, likely at a lower expense and perhaps with the opportunity for an RAship or TAship.

Why would you recommend an MBA from Booth? OP seems to be deciding between two MFE programs, and you propose he apply AND get into an M7 business school, seems somewhat random... There are essentially no overlaps between these programs (MBA vs MFE, MBA vs Math/Stats MS, MBA vs MS Comp Sci). Not to mention they require vastly different backgrounds for admission.

I do not want to come across as harsh, I am just curious.

 

[GoIllini]

Why would you recommend an MBA from Booth? OP seems to be deciding between two MFE programs, and you propose he apply AND get into an M7 business school, seems somewhat random... There are essentially no overlaps between these programs (MBA vs MFE, MBA vs Math/Stats MS, MBA vs MS Comp Sci). Not to mention they require vastly different backgrounds for admission.

I do not want to come across as harsh, I am just curious.

The overlap, of course, is finance as well as sales and trading.

There are A LOT of MBAs that work in Sales and Trading at investment banks. Most of them are in Sales, but most of them have pretty nice jobs and pretty nice lives. If I needed to stay in the Chicago area and I wanted to work in finance, but I wasn't particular about being a quant, instead of pursuing an MFE, I'd pursue an MBA at Chicago Booth.

 

[ShotokanAJKA]

The overlap, of course, is finance as well as sales and trading.

There are A LOT of MBAs that work in Sales and Trading at investment banks. Most of them are in Sales, but most of them have pretty nice jobs and pretty nice lives. If I needed to stay in the Chicago area and I wanted to work in finance, but I wasn't particular about being a quant, instead of pursuing an MFE, I'd pursue an MBA at Chicago Booth.

I understand the merits of a finance education at a good MBA program, I just think your explanation for the recommendation made a lot of assumptions. I do agree that Booth has a great finance curriculum and an exceptional brand name. This is actually a very interesting article from Booth regarding S&T,

http://www.chicagobooth.edu/chibus/news/2013january1/2013-january-1-SandT-Decline.aspx

 

[drahmah]

I'm currently in the UIUC program. I don't know much about the U Chicago program, so I can't tell you which is better.
- The UChicago brand name is probably way stronger in finance though. They host the UChicago trading competition, and they had teams score highly in the RIT competition.
- Lots of companies come to UIUC career fairs looking for CS people (even the prop-trading shops).
- You can go to both business/engr. career fairs, but the companies that come are very different. Impossible to tell which one is "better" for MSFEs because no company comes here specifically looking to hire us.

I'm in my first semester so I can only tell you about what I've experienced so far:
- There is only one CS course, and it is taught by a professor from the IE dept.
- We use C++ to program algorithms. Some of the stuff covered: Binomial/Trinomial option pricing, FFT option pricing, memoization/recursion, delta hedging, bond portfolio immunization, duration/convexity, Discrete barrier option pricing, Hull-White interpolation for asian options, monte carlo, LP optimization, etc..all the basic stuff. The professor teaching this is excellent. You'll probably find it easy if you've done C++ before, but I'd doubt you've seen these algorithms before from a CS background.
- Practicality is mixed. Not everyone comes from a finance background or with working experience, so I think the first semester gives more-or-less just the right amount.
- Finance course is rigorous and teaches very solid fundamentals.
- Our stats professor was new to the program. He taught it like a traditional graduate-level course. Very relaxed and high-level. We did some cool stuff like calibration of GARCH models with numerical optimization (with newtwon-raphson). I wish he taught it with more structure like a undergrad course though...not everyone comes in with solid probability/stats knowledge.
- Overall, the first semester was "just enough" in my opinion. It gave me time to look for internships - which I was able to obtain - and I also needed some time to transition back into my study habits. I hope that the next semester steps up the rigor though.
- Im very optimistic about my courses next semester. The faculty on the finance side is world-class in my opinion. We also had two new professors joining the program (Adam Clark-Joseph and Jackie Shen), and that added some breadth to the classes we could take. Prof. Joseph will be teaching High Frequency Trading while Prof. Shen will be teaching numerical optimization. They are both great people, and extremely well-qualified.
- One caveat though: if you want to actually succeed through this program, you have to be self-motivated. Being a locked cohort professional masters program, the students become close to each other quick and instructors have limited means to penalize lazy students. I feel like the physical distance from NY or Chicago makes some students deluded or unaware of how cut-throat the job market is. If you need the competitive environment to motivate yourself, then UIUC MSFE might be too comfortable for you.

 

[maoshouse]

I am a graduate from the UIUC program. I agree somewhat with the last point made my drahmah. You really need to be self-motivated, though that's really standard advice for anything in life.

The career services at school is pretty decent. The job board gets a lot of attention by firms. I had much more success via this than the actual on-campus career fairs. MSFE kind of falls through the cracks at these things as it really doesn't belong in either the engineering career fairs or the business career fair.